Australia: Pink, Macklemore, CMC Rocks Qld

Pink Latest Big Name Heading Down Under

Chris Pizzello / Invision / AP – Pink
Honda Center, Anaheim, Calif.

Pink returns to where some of her biggest career triumphs have taken place – Australia.

Live Nation announced that the singer’s Beautiful Trauma World Tour will hit Australia and New Zealand July to September 2018. Her 2013 The Truth About Love Tour remains the biggest-selling tour by a solo female artist in Australia (outselling Taylor Swift and Adele), with 46 shows to more than 600,000 fans.

The 2018 tour offers shows July 3-4 at Perth Arena; July 10-11 at Adelaide Entertainment Centre, July 16-17, 19-20 at Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena, Aug. 3-4 and 6-7 at Sydney’s Qudos Bank Arena, Aug. 14-15 at Brisbane Entertainment Centre, Sept. 1 at Dunedin’s Forsyth Barr Stadium and Sept. 4-5 at Auckland’s Spark Arena.

In Australia, Pink has had four ARIA No. 1 albums with sales in excess of 3.6 million units and four No. 1 DVDs with her Australian concert DVD sales in excess of 1.16 million units.

In other announcements, Frontier Touring has Sam Smith returning for a one-off show at Sydney Opera House Jan. 16. Smith’s first album topped the Australian charts and received six platinum certifications.

Fresh from a one-off performance at the Oct. 1 National Rugby League grand final in Sydney –  before a crowd of 79,722 at ANZ Stadium and a viewing audience of 6.5 million –  Macklemore returns for a full run for Live Nation. He does four shows Feb. 2-6 in Australia, and two in New Zealand Feb. 9-10.

To coincide with the Nov. 10 release of the Synthesis album, TEG Live has Evanescence playing with orchestras in three cities Feb. 11-16. “Playing the Sydney Opera House is something I’ve dreamed about all my life,” said singer Amy Lee. The band has album sales of 700,000.

Following being confirmed for new Crossroads In The Vines festival in NSW’s Hunter Valley March 24, Billy Ray Cyrus will do club shows in Melbourne and Brisbane. His first headlining shows here in 18 years, Cyrus is joined by Australian names as Kasey Chambers, O’Shea, Travis Collins, Caitlyn Shadbolt and Hurricane Fall.

On tour on Stevie Nicks’ seven 24 Karat Gold shows, The Pretenders will play two club sideshows in Canberra (Nov. 10) and Melbourne (Nov. 17).

Former Guns N’Roses guitarist Gilby Clarke plays four club dates November 30 to December 3.

CMC Rocks Queensland Makes History With Rapid Sellout

CMC Rocks Queensland set a record for Australian country music festivals Oct. 9 by selling out all 18,000 tickets in less than an hour.

Michael Chugg, executive chairman of Chugg Entertainment co-promoting the event with Rob Potts, said, “To say we were taken by surprise this morning is an understatement. To sell out in less than an hour is an amazing testament to the growth of the country music genre in Australia. We are all very proud, and are looking forward to our eleventh year, and the most amazing line-up yet.”

Due to growing demand, CMC Rocks (March 15-18, in Ipswich, Queensland) expanded its capacity in 2018 from 15,000. Acts on the bill include Luke Byran, Darius Rucker, Kelsea Ballerini, Busby Marou, Dean Brody, Travis Collins and The Sunny Cowgirls. 

– CMC Rocks QLD

Five Festivals Among Live Music Awards Nominees

Brisbane’s new acts showcase BIGSOUND, Tasmania’s pagan celebration Dark Mofo, Victoria’s Golden Plains, Byron Bay’s Splendour in the Grass and the international St Jerome’s Laneway Festival were nominated for best live music event in Australia by the Live Music Awards. The noms for 52 categories were announced at a Sydney event Oct. 9.

While Sydney rock band Gangs of Youth lead with six nominations, organisers were delighted that 63 percent of the nominees in national categories were females.

These included those working the international markets as Julia Jacklin, Amy Shark, All Our Exes Live in Texas, Tash Sultana, Meg Mac, Camp Cope, Alex Lahey, Vera Blue and Kucka. Awards founder Larry Heath was also delighted at the high amount of acts and associations from the indigenous, LGBTQI+ and feminist communities.

Report: Live Sector Shows Slight Growth

The Australian live performance industry shifted 18.78 million tickets through 2016, generating revenues of A$1.43 billion ($1.10 billion), according to the 13th Live Performance Australia Ticket Attendance and Revenue Survey. It covers

Genre categories include contemporary music, ballet and dance, festivals, children’s/family events, circus and physical theatre, classical music, comedy, musical theatre, opera, special events, and theatre. Together they employ 34,000 people.

According to the report, “In comparison to 2015, ticket sales revenue increased slightly by 1.2% and in attendance by 0.8%, showing that Australia’s live performance industry has remained stable.”

Contemporary music continues to be the largest sector, constituting 30.8 percent of revenue and 30.1 percent of attendance. Its 7.9 percent decline in revenue was attributed to a drop in ticket prices, which have declined 22.8 percent from a peak average price of A$110.50 ($85.71) in 2013. Evelyn Richardson, CEO of Live Performance Australia, warned that despite upbeat numbers, there was still a case for greater investment inn the sector from the government as it created more waves globally.

Tourist Badly Burned After Jumping Into Fire At Festival

A 21-year old French tourist who reportedly took hallucinogenic drugs at a music festival was taken to hospital with burns to 40 percent of her body after she jumped into a fire three times.

The woman reportedly wandered off from the Mushroom Valley Festival in North Queensland and into a nearby campsite.

There she jumped into a campfire and further cut herself on a barbed wire fence surrounding the site. 

Festival organiser Ben Irving said, “All we can do is create the safest space we can and have all the services that we can to keep people safe. It’s still hard to control everybody and an incident like that, especially if they’ve left the festival.”